Majora
Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx
in 2001 and secured funding for the 2007
groundbreaking of the South Bronx Greenway,
which will bring 11 miles of bike and pedestrian
paths to this urban community. A 2005 MacArthur
Fellow and recipient of New York University’s
2007 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Humanitarian
Service, Carter has served on New York Governor
Elliott Spitzer’s Energy and Environment
Transition Team and the Clinton Global Initiative’s
Poverty Alleviation Panel. www.ssbx.org

How
the hell did a poor girl from the South Bronx
get here? Imposter syndrome aside, statistically
speaking, I really shouldn’t be here.

Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We
need leaders who are not ashamed to stand up
and say we are not willing to leave this world
in the sorry state as the one we created. And
I say "we" created – none of us just
stumbled upon it. We created it – we
are all responsible.

Oppose
destruction with creation.

When
you’re a woman and you try to touch the
power – when you stick your head up and
take a powerful stand on behalf of others – somebody’s
going to take a swing at you.

That’s
how you know you did something right, when
the power that’s out there is afraid
of the change you are going to make – so
I gather my strength from my sisters.

Society
gives women two roles – only two, victim
or aggressor. Both can be used successfully
to elicit responses, however, the real power
comes from finding that sweet spot between
the two. Where you can explain the problem,
and bring people along with you, to a solution.
Now I can’t say I always do that, but
I can tell you, that I always regret when I
don’t do it.

…Putting
dollars into community supported infrastructure
and land-use plans that benefits the majority
of the people first.

Why
aren’t we putting a cap on our poverty
emissions? Poverty is violence. And like all
violence, women are often it’s first
casualty of war.

If
you feel helpless, the best thing you can do
is help somebody else.

Everybody
needs someone to love, something to do and
something to hope for.

Now
think about it, if you feel you don’t
have anything to offer, or anything to gain
by being a part of a community, and there’s
no predictable connection between the effort
that you exert and the outcome – violence
will happen. Violence will happen.

In
the same decade that we’ve seen such
unbelievable economic growth, poor people of
all colors are getting poorer and communities
are getting more toxic. That’s not caring
economics.

The
business of poverty is too expensive a bill
for humanity to pay any longer. All of our
solutions must incorporate poverty alleviation
and policies that acknowledge and medicate
the environmental inequities that poor communities
have traditionally experienced.

We
need to create strong markets for healthy consumers
and healthy producers so that it is possible
to be both.

Environmental
justice for all is civil rights in the 21st
century.

People
are aching for leaders who inspire them to
believe that there is a better way.